In a video posted online on Sunday, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that his Labour government will “never forget the legacy of the Windrush generation, who laid the foundations for modern Britain”. He added that it was “an honour to celebrate” their “ongoing contribution”. But how much of this is accurate, and to what extent is this political rhetoric a form of historical revisionism?

A significant proportion of the Windrush migrants arrived in the UK from the Caribbean after the Second World War to work on the London Underground and in the newly-created National Health Service. These migrants almost universally spoke English, and in some cases a hybrid Anglo-Caribbean dialect. They were typically British subjects as part of the Commonwealth, Christian and had been exposed to British institutional structures. With many coming from families who had traditions of serving in the British Armed Forces or Merchant Navy during the war, a substantial number of the Windrush migrants held strong affinities with the centre of the Empire.

This group tended to be better-educated than their compatriots who stayed put — unsurprising, given that individual voluntary migration required considerable financial resources and personal effort. Indeed, many of the initial Black Caribbean migrants would have been dynamic, driven, optimistic and adventurous people. The contributions they made to Britain should not be overlooked, but neither should they be embellished.

One of the most glaring holes in the mythologisation of the Windrush generation is the undeniable process of Black Caribbean decline in the UK, which provides anything but an uplifting story of integration and social mobility. Last year, the think tank Policy Exchange published its Portrait of Modern Britain report, which I co-authored, finding that on its “Educational and Economic Index”, Britons of Black Caribbean origin lagged behind not only the Indian, Chinese, and White Irish ethnic groups, but also those of African and Pakistani heritage.

One of the pitfalls of the lionisation of the Windrush generation is that it not only excludes the remarkable achievements made by white Britons in terms of industrial development, scientific advancement, and the very creation of the welfare state, but also risks trivialising the contributions made by other ethnic-minority groups. An example of this can be found in Lord Mayor of Westminster Paul Dimoldenberg’s suspect claim that the Windrush generation was “so essential” to Britain’s postwar economic recovery “that in the 1950s the NHS, British Rail, and the public transport industry were recruiting almost exclusively from the Caribbean”.

Notable levels of Indian migration began in the Fifties, with a stream of highly-educated newcomers arriving in Britain to work as doctors in the NHS. Then we had the East African Asians who fled the dictatorial processes of “Africanisation” in countries such as Uganda, bringing with them business acumen and cultural resilience to establish themselves as an integration success story.

Irish migrants, meanwhile, have a long and rich history of contributing to transport and engineering projects in Britain. Many Irishmen worked in construction and roadbuilding, following the tradition of the Irish navigators who helped build Britain’s canals and transport infrastructure. Additionally, 31,000 Irish-born nurses were in the NHS by 1971, making up 12% of all nursing staff in Britain. Compared to Black Caribbeans, the Indian and Irish ethnic groups fare much better in terms of family stability, educational attainment, socio-economic achievement, and respecting the rule of law. Yet their postwar migrants are not celebrated to the same extent as the Windrush generation, despite paving the way for intergenerational success.

The reality is that the Windrush scandal, while undoubtedly a stain on modern British history, has prompted an establishment overcorrection which has involved rewriting the history books. These migrants may have been hardworking and enterprising, but to claim that the Windrush generation played a critical part in laying the foundations of modern Britain is pseudohistory. While it may be viewed by some as a celebration of diversity and inclusion, putting Windrush migrants on a pedestal increasingly comes across as ahistorical, exclusionary and divisive.

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Dr Rakib Ehsan is a researcher specialising in British ethnic minority socio-political attitudes, with a particular focus on the effects of social integration and intergroup relations.

 

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